Trident3 has developed a purported „P2P“ identity. Named T3id, it is an NFT that is now valid on more than 70 blockchains thanks to LayerZero. Could this be the breakthrough for a Web3 identity?
Identity is a problem in the world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies. If you link it too closely with on-chain data like addresses or balances, you ruin user privacy; if it is absent, trust is lacking. It is a delicate issue with no golden solution, only good or bad compromises—which may be why there are many approaches but no unified solution to date.
Ideally, a digital identity connecting the classic internet and blockchains is decentralized, without a data conglomerate in the middle, perhaps even P2P; it does not consolidate the identity in one element but fragments it so that only what needs to be revealed is revealed. If you need to prove that you are older than 18, have a driver’s license, are a resident of a municipality, or are an experienced investor—why should you disclose more than this information?
The W3C Consortium has been promoting such a model under the keyword DIDs, „Decentralized Identifiers,“ for years. Trident3 claims to bring „P2P identity“ to the blockchains, which comes quite close to this model. Thanks to LayerZero, it now reaches more than 70 blockchains.
T3id is, as Trident3-CEO Steve Goldstein explains to the magazine Crypto Briefing, „an NFT that sits in the wallet and then gets a name chosen by the user. It is his choice what information he uploads to authenticate himself. He can upload a photo, an ID, his driver’s license. He can upload any certificate to authenticate himself.“
On the Trident3 website, you only find sparse information about T3id; the company prefers to blog about all sorts of Web3 topics while keeping the technical details of their product under wraps. If it is as Goldstein says, the solution would come remarkably close to the W3C’s DID program. You can upload whatever information you want, give it a name, and presumably have it verified by Trident3. It sounds interesting—but you would like to know much more than the startup reveals. You can’t test it directly but can only sign up for a waitlist.
The NFT is allegedly non-transferable, so it’s a Soulbound Token that cannot leave the wallet. Such a Soulbound Token is considered an ideal solution for digital identities in crypto wallets. Through a „Lock & Mint“ mechanism, LayerZero typically freezes a token on one blockchain first and then mints it on another. With a Soulbound Token, freezing is no longer necessary since it cannot be moved anyway, allowing LayerZero to map the NFTs to all other blockchains as desired.